Yesterday, a posting “The other Elizabeth Zwicky”, about a Facebook counterpart (in Chicago) to my daughter, Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky. Well, it turns out that I have a Facebook counterpart too (now in Romanshorn CH).
Also yesterday, a posting
From the continuing annals of near-Zwickys, a contrasting pair of Zwickes, one of them named Arnold.
And a posting “Zwick, maybe from Zwickau”, on still more near-Zwickys, traced to the Saxony region of German, close to the Slavic lands of what are now Czechia and Poland, supplying a probable Slavic source for the surname Zwick.
Now: two Arnold Zwicks, and several Arnold Zwickers, in Germany and in Nova Scotia.
My Facebook counterpart. Two Elizabeth Zwickys on FB, and also two Arnold Zwickys.
(#1) Arnold Zwicky of Romanshorn (canton Thurgau, on Lake Constance)
The other Arnold Zwicky (AZ-CH, while I’m AZ-US) is from Mollis (canton Glarus), which is pretty much where the Zwickys come from (it’s where my grandfather Melchior Arnold Zwicky came from) — or, as I recently wrote to Salome Zwicky (see my 11/27 posting, “The two Salome Zwickys of Zürich”), it all goes back to Mollis (her husband, the musician Conrad Zwicky, is from Mollis, so they are both citizens of that town; in Switzerland, citizenship is in a particular commune, and only from that in a canton and in the nation).
AZ-CH (there are doubtless many other Swiss Arnold Zwickys, but so far only one of them is on FB) went to İzmit Lisesi (Lycée) in İzmit, Turkey; studied at the University of Zurich; and is now a Computertechniker (computer technician) in Romanshorn. He married on 12/20/09. And that’s all I know about him.
Near-Zwickys: Arnold Zwick. I’ve unearthed two:
Arnold “Arnie” J. Zwick of Deming, WA, who died on 6/27/07 in Bellingham. He was 66, born 10/28/40 (just a few weeks after I was born) in Bellingham to Stella (Spanski) and Jack Zwick. He was a logger and log hauler, also a volunteer fireman.
Arnold Zwick, now of California City CA, who studied at Pearl River Community College in Carriere MS.
Near-Zwickys: Arnold Zwicker. I easily found three:
Arnold Zwicker, born 3/1/29 in Nova Scotia, died there 4/15/84
Arnold (Butch) Leroy Zwicker, now in his ealy 60s, in Nova Scotia
Arnold Zwicker, German footballer playing for TSV [Turnsportverein ‘sports club’] Bäumenheim, born 9/17/78
On Butch, from CTV Atlantic on 3/23/16:
A longtime icemaker at a local rink is facing child pornography charges after the RCMP searched a home and an arena in the Chester, N.S. area this week.
Arnold (Butch) Leroy Zwicker, 61, is facing charges of possessing child pornography and accessing child pornography over the internet.
Not an accident that two of the three are in Nova Scotia: the great 19th-century migration from Bavaria on economic and religious grounds brought lots of Zwickers to the New World, many to Canada, many of those to Nova Scotia.
Digression on Nova Scotian Zwickers. Overshadowed by Mozart’s death day, December 6th has another sad resonance, a hundred years ago this year: the Halifax Explosion of 12/6/17, in which 4 Zwickers (and no Zwickys, Zwicks, or Zwickes), all Canadian residents of Halifax, died. From Wikipedia:
The Halifax Explosion was a maritime disaster in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, which happened on the morning of 6 December 1917. The Norwegian vessel SS Imo collided with SS Mont-Blanc, a French cargo ship laden with high explosives in the Narrows, a strait connecting the upper Halifax Harbour to Bedford Basin. A fire onboard the French ship ignited her cargo, causing a large explosion that devastated the Richmond district of Halifax. Approximately 2,000 people were killed by the blast, debris, fires or collapsed buildings, and an estimated 9,000 others were injured. The blast was the largest man-made explosion before the development of nuclear weapons, releasing the equivalent energy of roughly 2.9 kilotons of TNT
Zwicker history. This from the House of Names site (not at all an authoritative source on names and their origins):
The German state of Bavaria [from at least the 13th century] is the ancestral home of the Zwicker family… Zwicker is a name for someone who lived in the town of Zwickl [or Zwickel] in Bavaria. {I find no trace of a modern town of this name.] In the eastern regions of Bohemia and Silesia, Zwicker or Zwicke was a short form of Zwickauer, which denoted a person from the Saxon city of Zwickau.
… The recorded spelling variations of Zwicker include Zwick, Zwickel, Zwicker (Saxony), Zwicke (Silesia), Zwickert (Silesa), Zwicken, Zwicki (Switzerland), Zwicky (Switzerland), Zwack (Bavaria), Zwacker, Zweck and many more.
(Note that this account takes the Swiss names back to the Bavarian names, and so to Slavic sources.)
Meanwhile, Zwickl is a much-praised restaurant in Munich, in the Viktualienmarkt:
(#2) Viktualienmarkt ‘food market’ (cf. English victuals and slang vittles)
and a type of beer; from Wikipedia:
Kellerbier / Zwickelbier: A rather old, rare, and unique German beer style, Kellerbiers are unfiltered and unpasteurized lagers that date back to at least the Middle Ages. The beer is matured, unbunged (beer is exposed), in deep vaults. The final product is a smooth, naturally cloudy beer that’s rich in vitamins (from the yeast). Hop bitterness can be high and alcohol will vary. Zwickel Bier is similar to a Keller, but not as pronounced.
Drink up!
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